Tips for Managing the Perfectionist in You
By Patrick Smyth | Submitted On December 01, 2014
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Expert Author Patrick Smyth
If you find yourself stuck in your writing by searching for the perfect idea, phrase, descriptive language, action sequence or grammatically correct prose, you may be a perfectionist. Producing high quality text that engages and captivates the reader should be the goal of every writer. Perfectionists
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That is where the balancing act comes in to play. Ultimately, it makes no sense to attempt to produce a perfect work if nobody is going to read it. Let the reader become the judge of what is perfect after they read your book.
The first important point is to stop procrastinating, idly tapping your computer mouse as you wait for perfection to arrive. Write down whatever you first thought of writing and just keep writing. Ignore the grammar, style and word choices as you write and save that work for later editing. Flow the creativity through your pen or fingertips, into your writing, and don't keep it solely in your head. Learning to be a good writer takes practice, as with any other discipline. Attempting to be perfect without practice is simply dreaming.
When you finally start the editing phase, be prepared to rewrite several sections of the work and plan on multiple rounds of editing. Don't let this frustrate you. Instead, take time away from the book and you'll find each time you return to it you will have a fresh perspective and the work will improve greatly. Have other people look over excerpts of the work to give you feedback. You may find that their view of perfection and yours don't match, and that's a good thing. Either they will give you constructive suggestions to improve it, or they will tell you it is great in spite of your tendency to want to keep on
Writers need to be able to control his or here inner critic or it can be destructive. Godwin mentions in her writing how a writer would “rather die than risk making a fool of them self”. Writers that cannot control their self critic destroy them self instead of taking the risk of being foolish. However, every writer takes this risk after submitting or publishing a work because it is impossible to know the opinion of every reader. A writer needs enough ambition to conquer their adversity over the real fear of
Writing is always a struggle. You have to analyze texts, search for sources, write multiple rough drafts, check for spelling and grammar issues, cite your sources, and support your statements with facts. The list goes even longer, but this is just enough to make anybody stressed. Everyone can relate to the struggles of writing, and personally, I have fallen victim to many of these struggles. However, even though writing is very difficult, you can gain experience on how to write successfully.
Perfectionistic is Traya’s limiting style. The percentile score received for this style was 63. This style can cause stress because the perfectionist tends to feel as if they have to be more than they are. They also feel as though they have to prove themselves on a consistent basis. Perfectionists seldom have a true sense of accomplishment, because they feel that the end product of whatever task they are working on is never good enough. They also are startle themselves with how irritable and angry they can get. This style is a hindrance to Traya’s work atmosphere because she becomes easily irritated and can irritate others. If Traya could change one of the behaviors associated with being a perfectionist, it would be the tendency to become easily irritated. If this could be eliminated, this would help created a more pleasant atmosphere.
Shitty First Draft a novel written by a woman named Anne Lamott is an educational novel that talked about her life experience in writing her novels. In Free Writing Exercises written by Peter Elbow, he explains that everyone limits themselves in writing because they are constantly editing their work. In the Pleasures of Reading written by Rebecca Mead it talks about how people read to impress themselves. When I was younger, I loved to read because the stories kept me entertained when I was bored but, as I grew older the books I read started to get more complicated because I didn’t know all the vocabulary which made it harder for me to understand the book I was reading. Finally, “The Maker’s Eye” written by Donald
Get out of that comfort zone, try to use other ways of saying what was said in the first draft. By the second draft there should be a more defined structure and ideas are not just running wild but now have a purpose to be in the paper. Always consider a third draft, it is needed to pull in all the thoughts from the previous drafts and give it a more fluent and natural flow. Make the paper have a defined purpose and point in existing. By this draft, the paper is going to clear the thoughts for the reader’s better understanding on the paper’s purpose. A paper is always written for the reader’s understanding. The third drafts takes out all the long, unneeded ramblings and revives it into a much shorter and adds the precise wording. Stringing the ideas from the previous drafts and clearing it up. The more mature words should still be used as long as it suits the nature of the paper. Finally, if ready, it is time to write the final draft. It takes all the wanted information and by then all the information has been written down repeatedly that stringing the words along just happens fluently as if it were baroque music. The first content written should never be the final copy, following Anne Lamott’s style of writing can prevent any grade lower than a C on a writing
Writing can be time consuming and each author must be passionate in their piece. Vetter explains, “The truth is that writing is a blood sport […] which is why those who are any good at it look older than their contemporaries, snap at children on the street, live alone.” Becoming a good writer takes persistence and patience. As an individual
My sister wrote a book one year and encouraged me to do the same. Her book appeared to be written in perfect English, thus, created my competitive drive. I wrote a book from scratch and got to over ten thousand words! Sadly, I never finished that book because, at the time, putting that much effort into something scared me. Just two years ago, I wrote a book that was over thirty thousand words. This book took so many hours to edit; I didn’t think that finishing was even possible. I had to be able to find mistakes I did not recognize the first, second, or the third time. This experience showed that critiquing yourself is an “uphill battle”. My writing became fluid and this book was packed with insights about various controversial topics! As a result, I was able to write more essays with ease, plus get better grades. My commitment to go through writing assignments slowly made writing and reading almost second
Nobody, except one person, can write a perfect first draft according to Anne Lamott. Lamott starts off the paper by say that all writers even the pros write bad first drafts. She describes the struggle that writers have in writing a paper and how it just doesn’t just come to them so easily. She gives a good example of a fantasy that
The Act of Writing: One Man’s Method Is there one specific method to writing? A secret formula to the perfect essay, speech, stories? Do all professional writers have their hands on this special formula or were they just born with the talent to write perfect sentences, paragraphs, essays, books? Is there a special way to edit your writing to make it perfect? I ask myself everyday, what is that formula?
Anne Lamott, a famous novelist, admits that most writers do not sit down every day with the intention of writing a masterpiece on their first try. In Lamott’s article, “ Shitty First Drafts” she tells her audience the reality of a writer's life. “ In fact, the only way I can get anything
Prior to taking this class, I would always just complete the number of drafts that my teachers would request. I would simply make the small grammatical edit and not worry too much about the argument or how my prose sounded. Tons of useless filler sentences and unnecessary words filled my papers. That said, no one is ever going to make a perfect paper because writing is not about being perfect. It is an ongoing quest for persistent development of your work and this was crucial for me to realize. I would always assume that my work did not need numerous edits or copious amounts of revision. Looking back, I am not sure if this was because I secretly feared having to correct myself so I deliberately ignored digging through all of the flaws, or that I believed my writing quality would be just sufficient to reach my desired grade. I think the more realistic answer is the former. This semester has encouraged me to break down the stigma around needing to write a perfect paper. It is not happening. Once I came to this conclusion, my reservations about truly analyzing my papers melted away slowly. This testament to the continual process that is writing, though initially tough to deal with, will surely make my writing better and more
With practice and hard work, writing can be a good skill to have. The step that’s people follow, and their writing process is different for every person. Writing something is not just some step by step thing. It is a process where we change our minds, rewrite, and rethink all of our strategies. No matter who the writer is they always do prewriting, writing, and revising. These are the steps I use in every writing assignment that I have ever done.
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While writing might seem like a simple task, it can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Sometimes it can be hard to express the ideas in your mind in the words of a paper. This results in a disconnect with what a writer may actually think. A great writer is one that can transform his thoughts into words perfectly. This is a craft that takes many years to perfect, which is why writing is troublesome for a lot of us. Many students also have had bad experiences with writing. Maybe they had a teacher that didn’t try to support them and their writing. They might not have ever gotten the help they needed and may feel that they are in a hole where their writing can’t get better. At this point, they just accept that their writing will never get better.